Rob Cooper: I guess I should start at the beginning...How did you guys meet and start Pinetop?
Darren Richard: Charles and I met in college down in Nashville and I guess that we've been playing together in various line-ups for seven or eight years.
Rob: And what type of music did you all play back then.
Darren: Well, all types really. We were both in the college jazz band, but we also had an original group of our own there for a while and we backed up this terrific female singer/songwriter down in Nashville. She had a terrific voice and was a terrific songwriter. We did that for a couple of years. I think she's still down there but now we're here...
Charles Kim: My family is from this area, so then we came back here to Chicago after we finished undergraduate.
Darren: That means we've been back here four years or so.
Rob: So how did your current incarnation as Pinetop come about?
Charles: Well the band's current line-up that plays out is different from the one the one that did the record. The record was basically Darren and myself and one other guy who's not with the band anymore. We started the recording process about two and a half years ago. Then once the record came out we found out that we needed more people in order to make it work live. As far as that goes, we've been with this group of people for about a year now. This line-up really works well.
Rob: It's been difficult for me to characterize your sound. It's very eclectic and all-over the musical map. So I have a three part question: How would you like to see your music characterized? Do you know of anyone who has a similar sound? And, the obvious question, what are your influences; that is, where did it all come from?
Charles: Ohhhhkay, Let me answer the last one first-our influences.
Darren: I guess that's the easy question. I mean we listen to everything, from klezmer music to bartok country &western a little bit, Thelonious Monk...The interests are all over the place. I think it's fair to say that in any genre of music there's something worthwhile going on something that we're into.
Charles: And what we're listening to and into is almost always changing.
(Darren and Charles borrow my notebook and record a list of their favorites for posterity. They include: Charles Mingus, Merle Haggard, Nina Rota, Tom Waits, Astor Piazzola, Nick Drake, Latin and Flamenco Music, Klezmer, Bela Bartok, Aaron Copeland, Ennio Morricone, 50's and 60's soul music, carnival and circus music.)
Rob (back in possession of the notebook): Next part of the question, I can't think of anyone off-hand, but is there anyone that you consciously emulate or that you think you sound like?
Charles: Hopefully, No.
Rob: Well that's the obvious answer, but I know that you've been lumped in with the whole "no depression" alternative country scene and, probably more appropriately, you've been compared to bands like Morphine that are really new, unlike any other band making popular, accessible music. You don't sound anything like Morphine, but are you striving for that kind of ideal-to do something that's fresh almost for its own sake?
Charles: Well we haven't run across anyone who sounds exactly like us, which is good, but lots of people try and categorize us in terms of other bands. That doesn't really work because we can't even explain our sound ourselves.
Charles: You did hit upon something else there. When we came out there did seem to be this big wave of No Depression type bands cresting and we sorta got stuck along with that.
Rob: So how do you feel about that? If that label deserves to exist at all, it surely really doesn't apply to you guys.
Darren: We really appreciate anybody enjoying our music and letting us know and coming out to the shows. I don't think it's all that fair to lump us into such a narrow and specific genre of music though. We don't really even think there's that much new and interesting coming out of that genre right now.
Rob: OK. I know you don't want to, but if you were bound, gagged and forced at gunpoint to describe your music, how would you put it.
Charles: Ummm...let's get back to that one later.
Rob: So you played CBGB at the CMJ music fest in New York. How was it to play such a legendary venue.--perhaps the world's most famous dive?
Charles: Everybody always says how gross it is; how it's a real rat-hole. It didn't seem that bad to me. It seemed almost like it was pre-meditated. Like "Hey We're supposed to be this dive, so we had better look like a rat-hole..." As far as the history, I guess that that was cool but I didn't really think much about it.
Darren: It didn't really affect me. I hadn't thought about it 'til now I guess.
Charles: It is a prominent name, but when we walked in we were like, "Well here we are, and it looks like any other indie-rock club on the planet..."
Rob: Another obvious question, what does the future hold?
Charles: Well we're starting on the new record right now.
Rob: Will it be a more collaborative effort with the new guys in the band since you made the last record?
Darren: All the guys who are in the band now will have a hand in it to a greater or lesser extent.
Rob: Any other musical projects on the horizon?
Darren: There's not really any time for me between Pinetop and my day job.
Charles: I have to dance every night.
Rob: Over at the Crazy Horse (a local strip bar)?
Charles: Exactly, it's a great show... No really I did some work with [avant-garde jazz improviser] Ken Vandermark and some other guys on the Dutch Harbor Soundtrack and I play around in various jazz combos.
Rob: You mentioned Ken Vandermark, Chicago has a reputation as an incubator for new music. There's a lot of clubs and venues that are open to more fledgling and avant-garde bands like Vandermark and yourselves. As a band that's non-mainstream and difficult to categorize, have you found that there's been a lot of support for what you do here?
Charles: There's a lot of great bands and a good scene here. Our last two shows we played with [country/folk band] The Handsome Family and then Ken Vandermark. There's great opportunity for musical cross-breeding. I know that everybody that we've met and worked with has been really supportive and encouraging. I know that in some other cities it's really tooth and nail, but I don't have that experience here at all. Even the club owners are really great here.
Darren: I don't know about New York or the other big towns, but I know that there have a several club owners here in Chicago who have really helped us out and looked out for us in several different areas. It's been really invaluable in helping us get to the next step.
Rob: So back to describing your music; if you had to, how would characterize your sound?
Darren: That's absolutely impossible, I can't do it. Charles?
Charles: Let's talk about something else. Do you want another coffee? Well, I guess I'd describe it as very pictorial with lush, very orchestrated arrangements. That might be better than saying "Well they sound a little bit like this and a little bit like that."
Darren: We are trying to distance ourselves from the whole alternative country thing, because we don't really sound at all like those bands.
Charles: I think the comparison may have started because we put a cowboy on the cover of our first record.
Darren: I mean there is a country influence, but it's just a small part and rather than think about, people just lump us in that group.
Charles: I'm pretty sure it's all because of the cowboy though...
Centerstage Will Feed You
